DuPont's LaPorte VAM plant in Texas down for maintenance

HOUSTON (ICIS)--DuPont’s vinyl acetate monomer (VAM) plant in LaPorte, Texas has shut down for a few weeks of planned maintenance, the company said on Monday.

DuPont spokesman David Hastings would not say when maintenance began at the 335,000 tonne/year unit in LaPorte or how long it would last.

A source said maintenance began in mid-July and would last for another 10 days.

Last year, the plant went down for 2-3 weeks of scheduled maintenance in late August. There are five US VAM plants, all located in the Houston, Texas, metropolitan area.

Sources said DuPont had no issues with VAM feedstock acetic acid supply because of the BP force majeure on the chemical declared 23 July.

Sources said the DuPont VAM unit is not in a bind yet for acetic acid because of the turnaround and that BP is not the only supplier of the feedstock.

Sources said spot VAM prices rose $45/tonne in the past week, averaging $845/tonne (€684/tonne), in response to the BP force majeure on acetic acid and a proposed August increase issued last week by LyondellBasell. Spot VAM prices previously averaged $800/tonne, according to ICIS.

Major US VAM producers include DuPont, Dow Chemical, Celanese and LyondellBasell.